The oh-so-sleek-and-modern IKEA kitchen you've been coveting may turn out to be just a fantasy. That's because the Swedish furniture giant is using virtual 3-D digital imaging rather than studio photography to produce its images:
"It's a clever way to save money," Anneli Sjogren, head of photography at IKEA, said during a recent interview at the company's sprawling photo studio in this sleepy southern town. "We don't have to throw away kitchens in the Dumpster after the photo shoot."
Instead, sets for entire rooms—spanning kitchens to bathrooms to porches—can be mocked up and created on a computer screen without the help of a single camera.
The practice is allowing IKEA to easily manipulate imagery to use a set created for one country—where dark wood might be popular—to another where lighter hues are all the rage.
Jens Hansegard of The Wall Street Journal explains: Link